Animation is by nature unpredictable, indefinable; the moments that make it magical are the ones that explode formula, not obey it. That being said, if you had to come up with a way of quantifying animation, you could do worse than to propose two basic units of measurement: the chuckle and the wow. Or, as a guy named Walter Elias Disney once put it, "Fun and wonder are the important elements [of great animation], in addition to quality in production and performance -- fun in the sense of cheerful reaction, the appeal to love and laughter, wonder in that we appeal to the constant wonder in men's minds, which is stimulated by imagination."

The first wow in the new masterwork from Japan's Studio Ghibli, "Howl's Moving Castle" (which opens Friday at Bay Area theaters), occurs just seconds into the movie, which opens on a blank, gray screen. The gray swirls and parts, and then, like an SUV designed by Rube Goldberg, a monstrous, shambling contraption rattles its way into view, no longer obscured by the thick cloud of steam that belches from its belly. It's a house -- a mansion, really, with turrets and balconies and chimneys thrusting out from every imaginable surface -- only this abode seems unwilling to abide in any one place very long. Instead, powered by some weird combination of magic and science, it manages to race crazily across the landscape.

A few seconds later, we encounter our first chuckle. The steam parts farther, and we realize that the house's mode of transportation isn't wheels or treads: The building cum vehicle achieves its bobbing, weaving stride via a set of giant chicken feet bolted to its vast stone undercarriage.

Suffice it to say that the wows-plus-chuckles-per-minute ratio in "Howl's" is tremendously high -- which, for Ghibli, is more or less par for the course. As demonstrated in "The Art of Anime: Studio Ghibli," the remarkable 15-film retrospective running at the Pacific Film Archive, the visionaries behind Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki and the lesser known but similarly brilliant Isao Takahata, have crafted a two-decade-long canon of spectacularly rich and entertaining animated features that, in their native Japan, young and old alike have lovingly embraced.

Indeed, Ghibli's last three films have each set new box office records, and 2001's Spirited Away grossed more than $234 million in Japan alone and wrested the all-time Japanese box office title away from its previous holder, James Cameron's bloated hankie-wringer, "Titanic."

Given that Ghibli largely abjures computer graphics and blockbuster licensing tie-ins ("Howl's Moving Castle" is an adaptation of a somewhat obscure British children's book by Diane Wynne Jones), what is it that allows its films to compete so effectively with Hollywood's juggernauts?

On one level, it comes down to the studio's sheer mastery of the animated medium. "[Their] stories are exciting and well told," says Michael S.B. Johnson, owner and founder of Nausicaa.net, the Web's most extensive Ghibli resource. "The characters are a perfect fit for each film's setting, yet they're believable human beings without unrealistic innocence or pure malice. The music -- and the silence -- is crafted very carefully to fit the mood, instead of just being spliced in from today's pop-idol album [fodder] and tomorrow's trash. And the locations are all painstakingly detailed and well researched not for the sake of photorealism, but, rather, with a touch of impressionism that crafts the mood of each scene skillfully and in concert with the music, dialogue and action."

On another level, it's because the two men behind Ghibli, Takahata and Miyazaki, are possessed of rare, original and complementary voices: Takahata is unmatched in depicting earthy, even commonplace tales with a kind of transcendent emotional sincerity, while Miyazaki is a world builder without compare whose creations are set in elaborate, immersive realities of his own invention.

"Takahata-san has a unique ability to draw you into an everyday narrative, to show all the nuances of character and drama in a mundane setting; to a certain extent, I don't even know that he considers his work as being for children," says Mona Nagai, curator of PFA's "The Art of Anime" series. "Miyazaki-san creates wonderfully detailed fantasies that are also very real and truthful. He's clearly making his films with children in mind, but he is willing to allow the young people in his films to have experiences and feelings that some adults think are too harsh -- because, as adults, they've conveniently forgotten what it's like to be a child."

Both are celebrated as having a magical storytelling gift that has been ascribed to just a handful of their peers -- talents such as Winsor McCay, Osamu Tezuka, Tex Avery and, of course, Walt Disney.

Magic Kingdom -- Hold the Magic

If you're an animation lover, watching Disney over the past five years has been a bit like following the career of a past-his-prime athlete propped up by past glories and behind-the-scenes injections of go-juice. In the past half decade, the studio that lovingly birthed such classic toons as "Bambi," "Snow White," "Fantasia" and "The Lion King" has stamped out an embarrassing series of, ahem, nonclassics: "The Emperor's New Groove." "Treasure Planet." "Atlantis: The Lost Empire." "Brother Bear." "Home on the Range." With the exception of the deliciously anarchic "Lilo and Stitch," all the recent products of Disney's venerable feature-animation machine have been critical flops and financial failures.

"I think Disney became a victim of its own success; it evolved into something that's now generally regarded as a kind of soulless money machine," says Russell Merritt, a UC Berkeley professor and the author of "Walt in Wonderland" and the forthcoming "Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies." (For me, the day the Disney music died was when I first saw notices for the so-called Disney Princess collection -- a line of videos, clothing and paraphernalia that herds together Disney's major animated heroines under the Princess brand. Not only does this revolting exercise in child exploitation ruin the integrity of the characters' respective individual mythologies, but at least two of the heroines included, Pocahontas and Mulan, could not by any stretch of the imagination be considered princesses. Presumably, the DizMerch team tossed them into the mix to cover for the studio's blatant lack of character diversity, but their presence only highlights the complete lack of black or Latino Disney princesses.)

The fact is, the few real gems on Disney's rhinestone necklace -- "Toy Story" and its sequel, "A Bug's Life," "Monsters, Inc.," "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles" -- have all been products of the studio's deal with rising digital giant Pixar, a deal that is now on the verge of expiring. In 2003, Disney's management apparently concluded that the reason for Pixar's success is its technological edge; the cel-based, hand-drawn animation that had served as the foundation of the older company had been outmoded by its computer-rendered counterpart. And so, that August, Disney terminated its traditional feature-animation activities, laying off hundreds of talented artists and shutting down its fabled Orlando studio. Henceforth, it was decreed, all their theatrical features would be created using those newfangled 3-D computer doohickeys. (Somewhere, Unca Walt's cryogenically preserved corpse is surely spinning in its refrigeration chamber.)

On hearing of this decision, fans and pundits alike were quick to put the "dis" in Disney, pointing out that people don't watch Pixar films to ooh and aah at ray-tracing algorithms. They're simply gravitating to films made with humor, humanity and heart. "Everyone, sadly including Disney, is trying to copy Pixar's success by going 100 percent computer animation," says Marc Hairston, a physics professor at the University of Texas at Dallas and a member of the volunteer team of "evangelists" who run Nausicaa.net. "No one in the top offices has figured out that Pixar's secret is not the computer graphics, but, rather, the fact that they focus on the stories first and foremost, and let the cool computer stuff take care of itself."

By year's end, Pixar may well announce that it's annulling its marriage to the Mouse (and, if it does, it'll certainly have no end of other suitors). And Disney, having learned exactly the wrong lesson, will continue thrashing its way toward irrelevance -- and away from the values that its founder most cherished.

But Pixar isn't the only asset in Disney's portfolio capable of providing a critical transfusion of soul. Since its landmark 1996 deal with Tokuma, Ghibli's Japanese distributor, Disney has had exclusive rights to distribute the studio's works throughout the world outside of Asia. Despite the seismic tremors this sent through Ghibli's fan community -- who were both excited at the prospect that their beloved films might finally get a mass audience and terrified that the movies would be manhandled and misused in the process -- this historic arrangement was given short shrift within Disney itself. "The general opinion is that Disney should have made a better effort to market Ghibli films from the very beginning," says Nausicaa.net's Johnson. "This would have justified more screens per theatrically released film." By way of contrast, Miyazaki's "Princess Mononoke" opened in just 47 theaters across the United States, as compared to more than 3,000 for Disney's own "Home on the Range."

Ironically, it was Pixar's John Lasseter who finally got Disney to put some real effort behind its Ghibli releases. Lasseter and his fellow Pixarites are deep-dyed Ghibli fanatics; they've gone on the record to say that when they get stuck on a project, they go into a screening room and watch a Miyazaki film. When "Spirited Away" came along, Lasseter was adamant that it should get a U.S. release worthy of its caliber of craft. In Miyazaki's words, Lasseter "bulldozed" Disney into picking up their option for its U.S. release; he then personally supervised the translation, dubbing and localization process to ensure that it was handled with care and respect for its source. The film was released to phenomenal reviews and nearly five times the box office of its predecessor, "Mononoke." It then went on to shock the industry by winning the Oscar for best animated feature -- beating out two of Disney's homegrown projects in the process.

Since then, there's been what Cal's Russell Merritt calls a "great lovefest between Ghibli and Pixar -- a mutual-admiration society. It's ironic, because Miyazaki is the last holdout for hand-drawn animation; he's the only major animator who refuses to embrace any kind of computer assistance. Yet, despite their different technologies, Pixar and Ghibli have found that they have much to learn from each other. You'll notice that I say 'Pixar,' and not other parts of the Disney corporation."

Rebuilding the House of Mouse

But it's the other parts of the Disney corporation that have the most to learn -- or relearn, as the case may be. Animation scholars generally shy away from directly comparing Miyazaki and Walt Disney: Merritt, for one, warns that the comparison has become a "sort of shorthand for introducing Miyazaki to Western culture, establishing how important he is in anime," noting that the contrasts are as stark as the similarities. But if there's one common ground the two animation masters could be said to have shared, it's a deep and abiding passion for their craft, and a sincere desire to delight their audiences -- adults and children alike.

And if Walt were alive, one could imagine he'd issue every Disney executive a mandatory pass to PFA's Ghibli retrospective to watch the poignant honesty of Takahata's World War II drama "Grave of the Fireflies," to embrace the enchanting innocence of Miyazaki's odes to childhood, "My Neighbor Totoro" and "Kiki's Delivery Service," to soar with Miyazaki's whimsical flying ace, the Crimson Pig, in "Porco Rosso," and to gambol with Takahata's shape-changing raccoon-bears of "Pom Poko." To experience the fun and wonder that make animation the most powerful tool for reaching the child in every adult, and the adult in every child -- and to sing a silly symphony of wows and chuckles, conducted by the greatest living maestros of the form.

"The Art of Anime: Studio Ghibli" runs June 2-30 at the Pacific Film Archive. Get a complete schedule here.

* * * *

So, here we go -- the first of what will hopefully be many biweekly columns, assuming that I'm not crushed by this breakneck pace (breakneck for me, at least -- I fall into the agonize-over-every-word category of writer, so penning an article of length on these deadlines is like yanking out my fingernails and regrowing them every two weeks). The feedback you've sent so far has been incredibly useful and, in many cases, morale boosting (thanks, R.W. in San Francisco, Victoria Chang, Tony Tam, Richard S. Lee, Lynda no-relation-to-Alice Wu and everyone else who wrote in with kind words). Thanks also to those of you who sent me questions for Alice Wu. As promised, I picked three from the bunch, and she was kind enough to make the time to answer them.

George W. Hayduke asked, "Why is Hollywood so unwilling to greenlight Asian projects?" Wu's response: "This is all conjecture, partly because I'm in New York and partly because I'm barely just getting into Hollywood now, but my sense is that, well, they're a business -- and, with the industry not doing all that well, they're even more likely to rely on what they feel has been proven in the past -- retreading the same material again and again. On the other hand, I feel like people have told me off the record that Asian Americans are not perceived as a group that supports our own films -- that we're just as likely to go to a film starring Russell Crowe as one with Russell Wong, which I personally don't agree with. But, anyway, rather than sitting around trying to get Hollywood to greenlight our films, which I think is kind of futile, we need to be writing our stories and finding ways of financing them on a smaller level on our own. On some level, that's what happened with the African-American community: Once they see that there's a homegrown audience, Hollywood follows."

Frank Avenilla asked, "Did the issue of interracial relationships ever come up in your mind during the process of writing the script and making this film?" Wu's response: "It was a conscious choice on my part to make the relationship between two Asians -- but it was also the choice that I just felt closest to on some level. The very few times I see Asian Americans in any love story, it's always an interracial relationship. I did get a lot of pressure to make the love interest white, and I felt very strongly that I wanted to keep her Chinese, as I'd written it. One reason is that the moment I made the character white, the film becomes about race, not about relationships. I feel like, this way, the film's actually more universal, because if there's one white character, it's like I'm telegraphing to the white audience, 'By the way, this is the character you should be relating to.' The other reason is that I personally thought it would be great. You never see Asian Americans having relationships on screen, and that's something I wanted to see. I have gotten flak from people saying, 'Why not an Asian man and an Asian woman?' I'm like, 'Yeah, that'd be great. Maybe next film.'"

Billian Lee asked, "Is there anyone you'd really like to work with in the future -- actor, actress or director?" Wu's response: "Aside from the actors I worked with on this film, whom I love, and whom I'd love to work with again, I'd have to say it's my dream to someday work with Maggie Cheung. And Kate Winslet. Well, there are a lot of people. Frankly, and I know that this is a little ridiculous, but there are certain directors that I'd just love to watch -- to be a fly on the wall. Like Pedro Almodovar -- I'd almost love to just be his assistant! Also, there are really an astonishing number of incredible actors in China. I'd love to shoot a movie there."

Thanks, also, to those of you whose questions I wasn't able to pass on. Wu is just completing the Bay Area leg of her film-premiere whirlwind. With any luck, some of you have actually had the chance to see and hear her in person. However, for those of you who haven't, reader Cynthia Greening was kind enough to send me a link to VCasts of Sundance Q&As with Wu and her cast.

Keep the letters coming! Let me know your thoughts on "Howl's Moving Castle" and Studio Ghibli's work in general -- especially in relation to American animation. See you in two weeks!

Jeff Yang is author of "Once Upon a Time in China: A Guide to the Cinemas of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China" (Atria Books) and co-author of "I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action" (Ballantine) and "Eastern Standard Time" (Mariner/Houghton Mifflin). He lives in New York City.

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